How to Improve Customer Communication and Generate Leads at the Same Time

Online marketing has always been one of the most effective strategies in growing a business. However, a common challenge is generating leads, sales, and revenue. You may have good marketing and advertising campaigns, but when there are no leads and sales, your efforts are probably going the wrong way.

Generating leads and sales starts with good customer communication. No matter how much you promote your website or social media, you can’t generate leads if you can’t address your customers’ needs efficiently.

Are you looking to learn how you can improve your customer communication and generate leads at the same time? Find out in this article.

What is Customer Communication?

Before going into the specifics, let’s first tackle what customer communication is. As the term suggests, customer communication is communicating or interacting with your customers. It might be because you’re selling a new product or responding to an inquiry.

Different companies have different customer communication styles, and this goes beyond just having a support department.

Customer communication can extend to generating new leads and taking care of your existing clients.

Moreover, customer communication shouldn’t be an exclusive concern of customer service representatives — the sales and marketing department should also be involved.

The logic is simple: you can’t effectively boost brand awareness or sell your products and services if you don’t have good customer communication skills.

What is Lead Generation?

Now that we know what customer communication is, let’s discuss lead generation. What is a lead?

Leads are potential customers that are interested in your products or services. In the lead generation process, businesses attract prospects and convert them into interested customers who will, later on, purchase your product or service.

Acquiring leads is just as hard as nurturing them. However, it’s not impossible. With the right methods and strategies, your leads will become loyal customers and might even be influencers and promoters for your brand.

How to Improve Customer Communication

As mentioned above, it will be hard for a brand to generate leads if they have poor customer service. Here are effective ways to improve your customer communication:

Use the Right Tools

We all know that people are mostly relying on the internet to stay up to date with information, product ideas, and current trends. Users are even purchasing online — thanks to the convenient and secured process offered by trusted shopping sites.

If you want to reach your audience via social media, email, or website, make sure you’re using the right tools.

For example, an email marketing tool can help you create beautiful layouts, newsletters, and announcements. It also functions as a marketing automation platform in which you can send your emails in bulk and schedule them for whichever date you prefer.

On the other hand, social media tools allow you to publish different content across various social media platforms, respond to comments and messages in a single dashboard, and schedule your posts. Lastly, having an analytics tool for your website aids you in tracking and improving your site traffic.

Take Advantage of In-App Messages

Emails may be an effective way of communicating with your customers, but there’s a possibility that your emails end up in their Spam folder. In this case, you can take advantage of in-app messages. These messages are like pop-ups that appear on a user’s screen when they’re accessing an application on mobile or desktop.

Like any promotional ad, in-app messages are delivered to your prospects just at the right time — when you have product updates or new offers. When done right, in-app messages can improve your customer engagement and increase customer retention.

Have a Cloud-Based Phone System

Are you still using traditional phones? Switch to VoIP or cloud-based phone systems.

All you need is a good internet connection and a device such as a desktop, mobile phone, or laptop. VoIP technology  is proven to change business communication — making customer interaction more efficient, faster, and more personalized.

The best part? A cloud-based phone system has automation functions that let you record your calls and track customer information. For a lower cost, you can now call your long-distance customers anytime, anywhere.

Automate Your Customer Service

There are many ways to automate your customer communication, and one way is to use a CRM tool. Customer relationship management platforms can help you manage your customer interaction and streamline your business processes. From improving customer service to increasing sales and profitability, the right CRM tool will leverage your business and give you a promising ROI (Return on Investment).

Maintain a Positive Vibe

You may have all the tools and budget to reach your customers online, but not knowing how to interact well with them can affect your brand image. When communicating with customers, make sure that you maintain a light and positive tone. Listen to their concerns carefully and assist them patiently.

When asking for feedback, do it politely — in a manner that’s more natural and not forceful for your customers. Personalized and honest communication is the way to get to your customer’s heart, and when you’re in their heart, they can never get you out of their mind. Maintaining a positive vibe promotes great customer service, loyalty, and retention. This is not as simple as it sounds, so it’s not a surprise many firms decide to hire the best phone answering services to make sure their communication with clients is flawless.

How to Generate Leads

Suppose you’ve already established good customer communication in your business. It’s time to work on your leads and grow your customer base. Here are the best ideas to do it:

Identify Your Target Audience

You can’t just communicate with everyone on the internet. You need to interact with people who are more likely to purchase your product. To identify your target audience, you need to establish your niche and goals first. It will be easier for you to reach the right customers when you know what you do and what you want.

Some of the factors that you should consider when building a target audience are gender, age, interests, behaviors, and location. You may also specifically look into their shopping behaviors and preferences. Additionally, you can check your competitors’ followers to get an idea of the ideal target market for your brand.

Conduct Regular Customer Care Calls

There’s nothing more fulfilling than letting your customers know that you value them and don’t take them for granted. Aside from responding to social comments and answering inquiries, your customer service representative must conduct regular customer care calls. You should ask your customer about their new purchase or how the buying process went.

Customer care calls are especially helpful when you have cold or inactive leads. For example, if you just acquired a new customer, and they seemed very interested in your product, but months have passed and they still haven’t purchased anything from you. You can nurture these leads by constantly reminding them about your limited offers, seasonal deals, or big promos.

You see, taking the initiative is the key. It’s better to make the move and be rejected at first than to do nothing at all.

Choose Your Promotional Methods Wisely

Just like using the right marketing tools, you should pick your advertising methods wisely. If you want to generate more leads on social media, you can explore Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, or even YouTube Ads. On the other hand, PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns and Google Ads can help grow your website traffic, clicks, and conversions.

The other methods that you can do to promote your brand and acquire strong leads are customer referrals, industry events, and speaking engagements. Just make sure that you’re visible online and people can reach you anytime. Most importantly, your promotional content should be attractive and engaging; otherwise, people won’t be interested in your brand.

Build Your Credibility

Online interactions and transactions are crucial, and people need to know that you’re a trusted source of information before they’ll follow your brand. To build your credibility, make sure that you’re not doing false advertising. Be real about your service and what you’re offering to your customers.

The best way to gain your prospects’ trust is through reviews from your past and existing customers. Word of mouth may be old-fashioned, but it remains the strongest form of networking.

Be Social and Active Online

As mentioned earlier, choosing the right promotional methods and advertising channels aren’t enough. You need to be on the social bubble and let people know that your brand is existing. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you always have to create social buzz.

You can join groups and participate in hot topic discussions. You may even volunteer to be a speaker to expand your network and build your credibility at the same time. You may wonder: what’s the best channel for networking? LinkedIn is still the champion for B2B connections and lead generation, so make sure your brand is visible on this social platform.

Conclusion

Customer service can make or break your company’s success. When you have good customer communication, you can generate leads more effectively.

By following the tips and ideas above, you can leverage your customer service and generate more leads — giving you higher sales and ROI. Just make sure to stay on track and don’t be discouraged by failures. Keep on growing your business and always aim for the best!